Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Inspired by a blog by The Golden Gleam I decided to make Sausage Mama's manchild a mud pie kitchen for his birthday! It was fun to make and turned out pretty cool, even if I do say so myself.

First Butterfly and I went to the Op Shop and bought an old pot, cups, plates, spoon, salt and pepper shakers, tomato sauce bottle, water jug and some other containers for mixing and storing. Then we invested in a large plastic box from a cheap store.

Butterfly and I then made coloured rice for the box by mixing food colouring into a few tablespoons of water and pouring onto rice. We used brown paper bags to store the different colours. We made red "sauce" for the sauce bottle by making red finger paint (add one tablespoon of cornflour to one cup water and heat on the stove until thick. Then add food colouring)

We used real salt for the salt shaker and good ol' dirt for the pepper one! The large tin we filled with sand.

The lid was my most favourite part! I drew on hotplates using red and black permanent markers. The knobs are old shampoo and toothpaste bottle lids, with the top removed and painted black. I got hubby to solder some holes in the lid, and I used some of our Makedo (available from Eco Toys) to fix them to the lid. Using this method the "knobs" actually turn!

Shampoo lids and makedo make movable knobs!!

Finally I wrote sausage boy's name on it to personalise, and hey presto! Environmentally friendly, upcycled gift! I would have loved to have used an upcycled container for the actual box but Op Shops don't always have everything!